Middleton’s face, which had begun to clear up, clouded again. “What’s the good of it? Not one of ’em would speak to us. I met one just now—and she looked at me—they all look at me, or _by_ me—as if I were a snake!” “As you are, Larry—a snake in the grass,” interjected the little Lieutenant. “Pretty?” “As a peach—Can’t you be serious a minute?”—for Thurston’s eyes were twinkling. “Every one looks as if she hated me.” “As they ought to, Larry; for you’re their enemy.” Thurston settled back with his pipe between his lips, and chuckled to himself. “You ought to see the way they look at me, Larry. I know you, Alexander. You’re not satisfied with your success with Miss Ruth, and Miss Rockfield, and every other girl in the North, but you must conquer other worlds; and you sigh because they don’t capitulate as soon as they see your advance-guard.” “Don’t be an ass, Thurs!” Middleton interrupted. “You know as well as I, that I never said a word to Ruth Welch in my life—or thought of doing so. When her father was wounded so badly, it happened that I had a scratch too, and I saw something more of her than I otherwise should have done, and that is all there is about it. Besides, we are cousins, and you know how that is. Her mother would have seen me in perdition before she would have consented to anything between us; and as to Edith Rockfield——” But the little Lieutenant did not care about Miss Rockfield. It was Miss Welch he was interested in. So he cut in, breaking into a snatch of a song: “Sure, Kate Riley she’s me cousin. Harry, I have cousins too; If ye like such close relations, I have cousins close as you.” He slipped down farther in his chair, his heels up on the table, and his hands clasped above his curly head. “If you don’t stop that howling, old Mrs. Dockett will come and turn you out again,” growled Middleton. “Not me, Larry, my dear. I can warble all I like now. I’m promoted.” “Promoted! How?” “Don’t you see I sit next to the butter, now?” “Fool!—But I’m used to being treated with a reasonable degree of civility;” Middleton went on, as if he had not been interrupted, “and I’ve put myself out more to be polite here than I ever did in my life, and yet, by Jove! these little vixens turn up their noses at me as if—as if—Why, they look as if they felt about me precisely as I feel about Leech!” He looked out of the window gloomily, and his friend watched him for a moment with an amused expression in his blue eyes. “Larry, they don’t know what great men we are, do they? You know that’s one of the things that has always struck me? I wonder how girls can have such a good time when they don’t know me. I suppose it’s the ignorance of the poor young things! But they shall know me and you, too. We’ll give the girls a treat next Sunday; we’ll go to church, and later to the ball.” “Church! You go to church!” The Captain turned his head and looked at his friend with such blank amazement that the Lieutenant actually colored.